Chapter 4
ROWAN
When Jess’s hand slips from mine, the room exhales around us, and the air feels thinner without touching her like I’ve surfaced too fast from deep water.
I flex my fingers once, grounding myself in motion, while her scent of jasmine and vanilla, a sweetness edged with nerves, clings to my skin like a promise I haven’t made yet.
The visitor badge gleams between her knuckles. Temporary freedom. Every Omega walks out of Nexus with one, no matter who they are.
“Processing,” Eli says, already moving toward the door. He moves the way he always has—efficient, quiet, steady enough to anchor Cassian and me both when tempers start to tip.
He doesn’t look at me, but I feel the flicker of his attention on Jess. Not pity. Hope. He’d deny it, but I know the shape of it on his face.
Jess keeps glancing at him like she’s trying to decide if he’s an escort or a guard.
“You’ll want him with us,” I murmur, tilting slightly toward her. “Eli’s our pack Beta. He keeps the rest of us civilized.” Not to mention he’s with me, in my bed, and I fell in love with him despite never being attracted to another guy before or since.
Her brows lift slightly. “You have a Beta?”
“Yes, and ours just happens to know how to talk Nexus out of trouble.”
She laughs lightly, and the sound makes something in me loosen, makes me think Eli was right to recommend her for our pack.
We’ve tried this before. Cassian’s bar pickups lasted three days before we found out they pawned everything they could carry, and empty pill bottles.
The last Omega I dated for a month looked at Eli like he was competition instead of completion, and couldn’t understand that loving both of them wasn’t splitting myself in half; it was finally being whole.
Other Omegas were too fearful of Cassian’s moods.
We move through corridors that reek of disinfectant and recycled air. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead like trapped wasps. A guard stares through us—not at us. Everyone here knows this drill, and no one wants to be part of it longer than necessary.
Jess walks between us with her shoulders tight, and I wonder what her story is. Sure, Nexus has her file, and Eli probably memorized it, but I want to find out from her.
A guard tells her to change into her street clothes she came here in, and return her Nexus items, but the ankle cuff will remain. They want her tracked no matter where she is or who she’s with, until bonded and claimed.
Cassian’s jaw ticks once, but he keeps quiet. The last thing she needs is a reminder that Alphas can start wars with a look.
I lean closer to her, just enough that only she hears me, and the sharpness of her fear hits me first, anxiety spiking her natural sweetness like lemon in honey. “Breathe.”
She does. Pulls in air like she’s following orders, and the scent around her shifts…the citrus fades, vanilla smoothing out into something richer, warmer. Still sweet, but steadier, like sugar crystallizing into something solid.
Good. She’s holding the line, finding her center instead of spiraling.
The guard places a plastic bag with her belongings, then a female guard follows her into a small changing room. I sign the clearance forms. Cassian signs next, his scrawl hard enough to cut paper. Eli signs with a flourish like always.
“Beta contact: Eli Mercado,” the clerk drones. “Primary Alpha contact: Rowan Hale.”
A few minutes later, Jess emerges, and the shift is immediate. Gone is the institutional victim. In khaki pants that ride low on her hips, a brown suede jacket worn soft at the elbows, and a gray crop top that shows golden skin—she looks like someone who chose this.
The set of her jaw says she’s done being handled. I wonder if she has any tan lines, then immediately feel like an ass for thinking it.
“Sign here that you agree to the terms of this temporary placement.” The guard pushes the paper toward her. “Do you understand the terms?”
“Yeah.” She signs the paper without hesitation.
Something tightens under my ribs in pride or warning, I can’t tell which.
At the final checkpoint, the scanner flashes red, and the guard reaches for the call button, but Eli’s already there, smooth as water over stone, quoting Nexus Code Section 7A—the one that lets a registered Beta authorize an Omega’s transfer without Nexus upper management’s approval.
“Section seven, subsection A,” he says evenly. “You’ve got a Beta signature on file—try it again.”
The guard hesitates, scans, and the screen flashes green.
Jess exhales, her whole body seems to deflate with relief, shoulders dropping, hand pressed briefly to her sternum like she’s checking her heart’s still there.
She turns to Eli, and when she whispers, “Thank you,” her fingers brush his sleeve. Barely. A ghost of contact.
His smile is small and genuine, crinkling the corners of his eyes, and the bergamot in his scent blooms warmer, less sharp, more rounded, like sun-warmed wood instead of fresh-cut timber.
It’s the scent he gets when he’s pleased with himself, when he’s fixed something broken, and it winds through the antiseptic air like an invitation.
My own scent responds, sandalwood sweetening with rain-like undertones, and I have to look away because it’s the same smile that undoes me every time I see it, the same scent that makes me want things I shouldn’t want in a Nexus hallway.
The exit door hisses open, and the air outside smells of concrete, exhaust, and a hint of something green. Jess wobbles in the doorway like the floor’s shifting under her.
Eli’s earlier briefing wasn’t wrong about her not eating; she’s running on nothing but willpower.
Cassian’s hand twitches at his side, an instinct to steady her if she starts to fall, but she remains on her feet.
Outside, the SUV waits. Black, discreet, built for function. I take the driver’s seat.
Eli opens the back door and waits.
Jess slides into the middle seat… Close, but not cornered. Instinctive. Smart.
Cassian smirks. “Brave of you to do this.”
“Or stupid,” she mutters.
He grins wider. “Same thing sometimes.”
Her voice catches, half laugh, half challenge. It softens something sharp inside me. Eli climbs in beside her.
I turn forward and start the engine. Cassian takes shotgun, but his hand lingers on the door frame for a beat too long, knuckles white, before he forces himself into the front seat.
His jaw works once, grinding teeth, swallowing words. He’d rather sit with her, and the restraint costs him. But crowding an Omega too soon is dangerous.
Not for us, but for her. Nexus hit her with a suppressant on intake—eight to ten weeks of breathing room on paper. But nothing inside that place ever works the way it’s supposed to.
If it wears off early, if she hits heat before she trusts us or understands we won’t use it against her… that’s a problem. Even with consent, heat scrambles judgment. An Omega will say yes to anything just to stop the ache.
Too many Alphas use that as an excuse.
Blake did.
Said it was an accident. Breath play that went too far. But the bruises told a different story—rage, not passion. By the time we found them, Meredith was gone.
Cassian broke his jaw in three places before I dragged him off, my own knuckles bloody from where I’d tried first. I called the cops after.
Blake walked on daddy’s money and a lawyer who made reasonable doubt sound like reasonable certainty.
Cassian still says I should’ve let him finish the job. Some days, I think he’s right. And I’ve had to live with that for nine fucking years now.
I pull out of the Nexus parking lot. At the exit, a set of guards goes over our paperwork with bureaucratic thoroughness, scanning, checking, scanning again before finally waving us through like we’re smuggling contraband instead of an approved Omega.
When we pass through the gate, Jess’s scent fills the cabin immediately—sugar and skin and something wildly, dangerously alive. Jasmine blooming hot and vanilla gone dark, almost caramelized, the way heat changes sweetness into something richer, more intoxicating.
My own scent deepens. Next to me, Cassian’s leather and amber thickens, filling the spaces between us. Even Eli’s bergamot cuts through with something bright and citrus-edged, attraction he’d deny if I called him on it.
That low thrum of recognition of my Alpha side running under the surface like an electrical current I can’t shut off, so I angle the vent toward the back and keep my eyes on the road like my life depends on it.
“There are rules,” I tell her. “Ours, not Nexus’s.”
In the rearview mirror, her eyes meet mine, but there’s no fear in them, just alertness.
“Rule one,” Cassian says, voice low, easy. “You don’t do anything you don’t want to do.”
Her brows lift. “Ever?”
“Ever,” I confirm. “Consent’s not a form you sign once.”
Eli adds, “Saying yes once doesn’t mean yes always.”
Her shoulders drop, barely, but it’s there. Cassian notices too, though he pretends not to.
“Rule two,” I continue. “Don’t go anywhere alone. That’s not control. It’s protection.”
“Because I might run?”
“Because we protect what’s ours,” Cassian says.
But all of us know that Blake’s still out there, and we never let our guard down.
Cassian still tells me we should kill him because he got out scot-free from his dad paying bail, and a high-paid lawyer. But even with Blake down in Florida, there’s plenty of other Alphas willing to take an Omega who isn’t claimed and bonded.
She nods, a small motion that feels like trust. “And rule three?”
“Eat when Eli tells you to.”
Eli rolls his eyes. “That’s not—”
“It is,” Cassian cuts in. “You’re dangerous when you’re hungry.”
Jess laughs, and it hits me low in the gut. Vanilla spikes, warm and bright, but I don’t let it show.
“Can’t say I blame him. I’m starving. No offense, but Nexus food is shit.”
Cassian glances back, amused. “What are you in the mood for?”
“Anything.”
Eli points through the windshield. “There’s a café up ahead. Lots of variety. Good noodles.”